The latest round of snow has ended. We have peremptorily moved our clocks ahead here one hour, making it suddenly late. So I sat down to my computer to write a blog post. But I didn't start out writing my blog post right away. Instead I looked up Winnie the Pooh. I wanted to make sure the full text of the novel was easily available online, now that its copyright has expired (finally!).
You see, I am involved in a series of ambitious artistic projects that I am not actually doing. One is the story of my walk across a continent in the early eighties, which you may have read some of here, before you stopped reading my blog altogether, in which case I'm not talking to you anyway, less from hurt feeling and more because it would be futile. Another project is about an assassin who tries to social engineer a better world through careful murders of the rich and powerful. I just did a short introductory proof of concept for that story, which you may have seen here too, but may have forgotten about already. I understand that it's too creepy for the most important part of my audience here at clerkmanifesto to carry on with anyway.
But lately I have started thinking about a third project to get to work on not doing:
The Plagiarized Winnie the Pooh.
If singers cover other peoples' songs, and movies sometimes remake the same movie over and over, and people keep retelling fairytales in every way possible over and over, why can't I write Winnie the Pooh again?
Now it is important for me to make a distinction in what I'm thinking about. I am not talking about a twist on the text, or an extrapolation of what might happen later, or an explanation of the events in a different context, or any of that fan fiction stuff that dominates so much of modern culture. I am much more approaching it in the "remake" context: The same story, similar tone, though maybe with my own style and interpretation to it.
I think this is a very interesting idea.
So I looked over the text of Winnie the Pooh and...
It's actually perfect just as it is.
But I may get to work on not doing it any day now anyway.
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If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.
I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!
One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.